Lakeside residents feed fire crews

It takes a lot to feed 175 firefighters – at least that's what Lakeside residents discovered last week.

Workers at Blacktail Grocery and volunteers at Lakeside Community Chapel opened their doors and their shelves to feed the hotshot and local fire crews in town to combat the Baldy Wildland Fire, located three miles west of Lakeside, from Sept. 27 through Oct. 1.

The crews working the fire sought meals from Blacktail Grocery. While the store was compensated by the government for the food, workers volunteered their time to make three meals a day for the firefighters.

"It's literally exhausting," scanning coordinator Judy Sederdahl said.

The store started meals for the firefighters with lunch Sunday, Sept. 27.

What started as a few lunches became many more until they were doing meals for the full crew.

For both Monday and Tuesday, the store made 175 sacked meals for three meals a day. Dinners also included a hot meal.

The number was reduced to roughly 130 and then about 85 as the week progressed. The last meals were served Thursday as the hotshot crews started pulling out and turning over the fire to local firefighters.

Along with workers, local Mariah Misner, whose boyfriend was on one of the crews, came in to volunteer at the store each day to help make the meals.

Preparing the food was one thing, serving it was something else entirely.

Lakeside Community Chapel volunteers picked up the food early each morning, starting around 5:30 a.m., to serve it to the fire crews at the chapel. About 25 church members as well as people from Youth With A Mission and from the community at large donated their time to give out the meals, Chapel Pastor Dennis Reese said.

One of the church's members was on a volunteer fire crew and suggested the church as a place for the public meetings, held Sunday and Monday nights to update residents on the fire, and then as a place to serve meals. The church got a call at about 3 p.m. Sept. 27 for serving dinner that night at 6 p.m.

A call out to Youth for a Mission brought in 40 volunteers for that night alone.

Local residents also brought in cookies, brownies and other food items throughout the week as donations to the fire crews.

"It was just a wonderful response from the community," Reese said. "Everyone involved did a wonderful job. It was a postive experience for our community."